Hayden Cross, Catcher
App State University
So far this trip has been an eye opening experience. The places that we have seen and the way that people live is unlike anything that I have ever seen before. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to join this team and have fun with this group of guys. Our day today started with a Bible Study that was led by Andrew. After the Bible Study we ate breakfast and got ready to leave. Today we visited two villages. At the first village, we worked on the pastor’s house. The house has been in the process of being built for the last several years. When we got there, we found a house that had no floor and had nothing inside. The pastor has been living in a different house that was right down the road. They are moving because the concrete is beginning to fall off the ceiling in their current home. The work they had us doing at the new home involved digging a trench so that the pipes can connect to the septic tank in the back. Since we only had a handful of shovels, some of us went to play with the local kids. At first the kids wanted to play baseball, but then they started jumping on our backs and wanted us to race. So several of us grabbed the kids on our backs and ran with them down the road. One boy named Angelo wanted to play “Policía”, so he made us put our hands up and he would walk around and pat us down. The children were so happy to play with us and their smiles were awesome! After we finished digging the trench and playing with the kids, the pastor gave us a tour of his current home. The home had a small living room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen and was in pretty bad condition. When we left that village we went to our interpreter Kike’s village, where his mother currently lives. Before we went to his mother’s house, we walked around the village and delivered food that we had bought at Jumbo a few days ago. We delivered 15 bags of food to families around the village that can feed them for about a week. Kike’s village was nicer than the first village we went to, but it was still very eye opening. After we had delivered all the bags of food, we took the bus to Kike’s mother’s house. She was incredibly nice and welcomed us gladly. Kike gave us a tour of the house and the church beside it. The church was nice, but very small and could only fit a few dozen people. While we were in there Kike showed off a little bit and played the drums for us which was really cool. After that we said goodbye and headed back to the Villas. Once we got back we ate dinner, unpacked the day, had a Bible Study, and just hung out for the rest of the night.
